KANSAS CITY, Mo. — After years of lying vacant, the land in one urban core neighborhood is now seeing new homes being built. And though it’s east of Troost, buyers are paying more than $300,000 to live there. City officials hope the trend they’re seeing in the Beacon Hill neighborhood will continue to grow.
There are more than 18,000 well-paying jobs within three miles of Beacon Hill in places like Crown Center, Hospital Hill and Hallmark. This neighborhood is being marketed to those workers as a convenient, safe place to live that doesn’t require a lot of costly commuting.
Dave and Kelly Sisney are among the recent buyers who have built new homes in Beacon Hill. They had been renting a loft in downtown Kansas City for the last four years. They told FOX 4 News that owning their own home here is saving them a lot of money.
The Sisneys like having a suburban-like setting minutes from downtown or virtually anywhere else they want to go. Each new home in Beacon Hill is custom built for an urban environment with features like front porches, balconies and garages that face the alley.
“A majority of our Johnson County friends, while they think it’s novel and kind of exciting, also always have that look in their eye, like, really?” said Dave Sisney.
As people recognize the value of living close to downtown and closer to where they work, developer John Hoffman believes demand for these close-in neighborhoods will continue to grow.
“I think you get a big bargain here, because I think we’re efficient in our building,” Hoffman said. “We don’t have any taxes. We’re tax abated for 10 years through a program with city. To get in here, the first buyer that came in was paying $2,300 a month to rent. He’ll be paying around $1,500 to own. He sees it as a big savings and he owns his own home.”
Finding a nearby grocery store often is an issue in the urban core. Developers plan to build a new store nearby at 27th and Troost.
Getting back an hour or more a day where you don’t have to sit in your car is worth it for some people. The city wants those same people to help repopulate the urban core.
Up until now, Beacon Hill may have been best known for financial scandal. Nearly a decade ago, the nonprofit Housing Economic Development Finance Corporation billed the city $1 million to rehab a couple of old homes here. Now different developers have said they’re showing they can design and build new homes efficiently and people will buy them.
